SCP-3333 The Tower

Dr Bob

Dr Bob brings you SCP Foundation Keter Class object, SCP-3333 The Tower Animation.  Join the DR BOB SQUAD by going to https://www.patreon.com/DrBob and become an Honorary Member of the Dr. Bob Research Staff!  SCP-3333 is a spatial anomaly located within the Suntop fire lookout, located in Mt. Baker/Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington State, United States of America.  SCP-3333 is accessible via a ladder and trapdoor on the ceiling of the Suntop lookout. Climbing the ladder leads to an identical copy of the Suntop fire lookout. This identical copy has an identical ladder and trapdoor pair, which leads to further copies of the Suntop lookout.  Watch ALL of DrBob's videos including SCP 150 The Body Stealing Parasite and SCP 3700 Tides of War here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHxBeJ7z3xRleoXfcoFZxHgqji3jKgWwV  This video, being derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3333 written by Jekeled, is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/  Narrated by Joe Cliff Thompson #drbob #scp #animation

Transcript

00:00Jack had always wanted peace and quiet.

00:02It's why at first, the job at the Firewatch Tower seemed like such a dream.

00:07He never even imagined that soon enough, it'd be his worst nightmare.

00:13While his tax returns would tell a different story, Jack was a writer.

00:18At least he was going to be, as soon as he actually got the time to focus and hammer out

00:22his masterpiece.

00:23Every attempt so far had been a disaster.

00:26When he'd taken that job as a caretaker at a hotel in the Rockies with his wife and son so

00:30he could work on the great American novel,

00:32he'd gone a little stir-crazy, and the place was really far too cold to get anything done.

00:38But when he decided to check in at a hotel on the West Coast to work on a screenplay,

00:42the other occupants never let him have a moment's peace.

00:45In the end, the whole place burned down.

00:48Jack was beginning to worry that maybe the life of the mind just wasn't for him.

00:52Then he saw the Firewatch posting, and he practically jumped out of his skin with excitement.

00:57It was in his home state of Washington, out in the Snoqualmie National Forest,

01:01and all he needed to do was man that 14-foot square cubicle and look over miles and miles of

01:07gorgeous greenery.

01:09Peace and quiet, and so high up, a God's eye view.

01:13The perfect place to mainline inspiration for the opus that he knew was inside him.

01:18When Jack found out that he got the job, he was in the car with his worldly possessions the very

01:23next day.

01:24The fact that all of his worldly possessions all fit into the back of his Buick didn't bother Jack,

01:29because he was just a temporarily embarrassed literary millionaire.

01:32He pictured himself describing this moment years later,

01:35wearing a turtleneck and sitting on the comfortable couch of a TV interviewer.

01:39So yeah, I got this job at a Firewatch tower. Figured it'd be an interesting experience, he'd say,

01:46basking in the interviewer's warm smile and the adoring eyes of the live studio audience in the dark.

01:51I had no idea it was just what I needed to unlock my greatest work.

01:55And then he arrived.

01:57It was a frightening thing to have to lug his vintage Smith Corona typewriter up the rickety wooden stepladder to

02:03the cab.

02:03Any literary fantasies were replaced by the simple repetition of three words.

02:08Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down.

02:12During his orienteering meeting, he'd been told that the tower was at the perfect tip of Mount Suntop,

02:18affording maximum visibility over the whole park.

02:21Standing on the dusty old floorboards of the cab, Jack believed that.

02:25He'd never seen so, well, much.

02:28The sheer muchness of it, the rolling hills of evergreens,

02:33the kind of true wilderness that swallows human life like an Advil thrown back with a cup of water.

02:38It was almost dizzying.

02:40The cab itself was surprisingly well equipped.

02:43There was a full kitchen area with a sink, a propane oven and stove,

02:47pots and pans, baking sheets, plates and cutlery.

02:50Rain was collected in a 400-gallon Nalgene tank

02:52and filtered into water that was safe to drink or cook with.

02:55He had charging ports, an FM radio, a double bed, a desk,

02:59and a dollar store toolkit for maintaining the facilities.

03:02His duties were simple.

03:03Keep the tower itself in good condition

03:05and perform systematic observations for fire across his part of the national park,

03:10reporting back any relevant information to his contact at the Forest Service.

03:13That contact was Tabby.

03:16He'd never actually met the woman.

03:18As far as he'd experienced, she was just a voice on his two-way radio.

03:21But she seemed nice enough.

03:22The two would speak every evening so he could share the information he'd gathered.

03:26On slow days, she was still on call just to chew the fat.

03:30But other than that, it was all beautiful, pure, perfect writing time,

03:35with nobody to bother him or disrupt his creative flow.

03:38He could exhale and let his fingers work like lightning on the keys of his typewriter.

03:43And yet, he didn't.

03:45In fact, Jack found every possible way to procrastinate on his supposed life's work.

03:50When he could get enough data on his phone to actually surf the web,

03:53he'd sometimes watch YouTube videos.

03:56His favorite channel was Dr. Bob,

03:57because of its entertaining and informative breakdowns of Foundation anomalies

04:01and the often horrible things that happen to people who fall afoul of them.

04:05He subscribed and hit the bell so he'd never miss another video,

04:08and hey, I recommend you do that too.

04:11It's just a shame that, through some temporal paradox,

04:14he wasn't able to see this very video and know what he was in for.

04:17It would have saved him a lot of trouble.

04:20If you'd asked him at the time what the problem was,

04:22he would have deflected, perhaps said,

04:24I have the energy, I have the drive, I just don't have any decent ideas.

04:28And maybe that was true.

04:30Or maybe he was scared.

04:32Scared that with all this time and opportunity to himself,

04:35he'd reveal that his skills never really lined up with his ambitions.

04:39Afraid that if he committed to one idea, one path,

04:42perhaps he'd miss an even better one rolling by.

04:45Perhaps his whole life had just been a pear necklace of bad ideas,

04:48and he was working his way towards the clasp.

04:52To avoid getting immersed in thoughts like that,

04:55he'd talk to Tabby over his radio instead.

04:57Leaning back on his chair and looking out over the darkened forest.

05:00He didn't even like to look at the typewriter after 8pm.

05:03It always gave him bad dreams.

05:05Come to think of it, he had more bad dreams than he ever used to

05:09when he was manning the tower.

05:11Is that common? Weird nightmares?

05:13Jack asked over the radio.

05:15Tabby's voice crackled in.

05:17Oh yeah, Derek said the exact same thing.

05:20Derek? Jack asked.

05:22Yeah, he was a last fire tower operator.

05:24She said.

05:25Big guy, looked like Paul Bunyan.

05:27Beard, flannel shirt, everything.

05:29Not nearly as good a conversationalist as you.

05:31He'd sometimes put in calls in the middle of the night, half awake,

05:34saying he saw things moving in the dark.

05:37Tabby said that like it was supposed to be funny,

05:39so Jack laughed along, hiding his discomfort.

05:43There was enough for him to have bad dreams about.

05:45He didn't need to think about anything, quote,

05:47moving in the dark.

05:49What happened to Derek in the end?

05:51He asked.

05:52There was a long silence,

05:54like Tabby realized she'd said something she shouldn't,

05:56and now she was trying to think of an exit strategy.

06:00Derek, he voided his contract, she said.

06:04Stopped responding one day.

06:05We never really knew what happened.

06:08It was an almost surgical strike

06:10into the very last thing Jack could have possibly wanted to hear,

06:13and Tabby seemed to pick up on that in his silence and shot back in.

06:17This kind of thing happens all the time, of course, she said,

06:20affecting an almost performatively carefree voice.

06:23Doesn't mean anything bad's happened.

06:24It's demanding work emotionally,

06:26and some people just can't hack it.

06:28They bail before they find their rhythm.

06:30Not you, though, Jack.

06:31You've got real initiative.

06:34Yeah, Jack thought.

06:35If only it could be initiative,

06:36it's something I actually wanted to do.

06:39The days marched on, then the weeks.

06:41Surfing the internet got boring,

06:43and he was so damn sick of looking at all these stupid trees.

06:46His attention turned inwards,

06:48studying every detail of the cab instead.

06:51He could see why Derek went mad from boredom and went AWOL,

06:54even the internet felt like it wasn't offering up new distractions anymore.

06:58He was three weeks and two days into his post,

07:01when he noticed the hatch in the ceiling.

07:03It was nailed in place,

07:05but Jack, with his wannabe writer's curiosity,

07:07wasn't going to let that stop him.

07:09He took the claw hammer out of the dollar store toolkit,

07:12and pried the nails out of the wood,

07:14until the door came swinging down,

07:16revealing the darkness up above.

07:18Some kind of attic space.

07:19There was a flashlight in the top drawer of his desk,

07:22and he had pretty decent upper body strength.

07:25If he wasn't going to write,

07:26he should at least do some exploring.

07:30He held the hard plastic of the flashlight between his teeth

07:33like the blade of a pirate's cutlass,

07:35carrying the hammer in one of his belt loops,

07:37and gripped the edge of the hatch into the ceiling.

07:41He felt dust under his fingertips,

07:43and pulled himself up into the dark.

07:46The air was musty up here.

07:48He suppressed a cough,

07:50and scanned the beam of the flashlight around the room,

07:53squinting,

07:53trying to drag the abstract shapes from void into form.

07:57Jack could hardly believe what he was seeing.

07:59This wasn't some attic space,

08:01it was...

08:02the cab.

08:03An exact replica of the cab

08:05he'd spent three weeks stewing away in,

08:07even down to the same Smith Corona typewriter

08:09that he'd brought with him,

08:11covered in a thick layer of dust.

08:13The hell am I looking at?

08:15Jack said,

08:16before breaking into a dust-induced coughing fit.

08:18He looked out the window,

08:20same view into the dark forest,

08:22from just a little farther up.

08:24No, no, this didn't make sense.

08:25He knew it.

08:26He'd seen the fire tower from the outside,

08:28miles away,

08:28and he knew that there was no second floor.

08:30He knew it.

08:31Just a sloped, corrugated iron roof.

08:34He was standing in a physically impossible room.

08:38It could have driven a person mad

08:39if they thought about it too hard,

08:40but what Jack was thinking about

08:42was a whole lot simpler.

08:43This would make for one hell of a book.

08:47He continued to sweep around the room

08:49with his flashlight,

08:50looking for some inconsistency

08:51that would make the illusion shatter around him,

08:54like light collapsing around a dying star.

08:56But he found something even stranger.

08:59When his light hit the ceiling,

09:00he saw another impossibility.

09:03A second hatch in the ceiling,

09:05nailed shut,

09:06just like the first one.

09:08Couldn't happen twice, could it?

09:10No, no way.

09:12But just as before,

09:13he prized out the nails

09:14and let the hatch fall free.

09:17He reached up again

09:18and pulled himself up into the dark space above,

09:20illuminating it with his flashlight.

09:22And just as he'd wondered,

09:24just as he'd hoped,

09:25it was another exact copy

09:27of the cab,

09:28even down to the dust on the smith corona.

09:31This confirmed everything.

09:32He was dealing with a physical impossibility,

09:35something that would rewrite

09:36the understanding of all of humanity.

09:38He'd break the story.

09:39Hell, he'd write the story.

09:40He'd be a millionaire.

09:42But curiosity still tugged at him.

09:44One exact copy of the room was impossible.

09:47Another exact copy was even more impossible.

09:50But how far did the impossibility reach?

09:52He had to know,

09:54had to see the end of it.

09:55It'd only make the story more interesting.

09:57Another hatch,

09:58another climb,

09:59another cab.

10:00Another hatch,

10:01another climb,

10:02another cab.

10:03Another hatch,

10:04another climb,

10:05another cab.

10:06It went on and on like that.

10:08He was astonished,

10:09counting the ascent into the tens.

10:11He lost count after fifty.

10:13When he looked out of the window,

10:14he was so far up

10:15that he couldn't even make out individual trees,

10:17just an impossible,

10:19indiscernible mass

10:20of deep, dark green.

10:23At a point,

10:23it became compulsive to Jack.

10:25He ignored the tiredness in his limbs,

10:27didn't pay any mind

10:28to the trembling or the burns

10:29as he pulled himself up

10:30into the next level.

10:32Had he passed a hundred?

10:33Two hundred?

10:34Three hundred?

10:35He was so far up in the air now,

10:37and it was so dark out there.

10:39And then it stopped.

10:41There was no more hatch in the ceiling.

10:42It somehow caused this immense wave

10:45of both disappointment and relief.

10:47But at least now he knew

10:48he'd seen the full extent of it,

10:50and he could make his way back down

10:51to the lowest level,

10:52where he could write all this down

10:54and tell his story to the world.

10:59It was at this exact moment

11:01when he was turning

11:02to jump back down the hatch

11:03that he saw the walkways.

11:05There was a door

11:06in the side of the cabin

11:07that wasn't there before,

11:08one leading out

11:09to what seemed like

11:10a complex web of rope bridges,

11:12which in turn

11:13led to more cabins

11:14suspended out there in the dark,

11:15which led off into more rope bridges

11:17and on and on and on.

11:20He had to know.

11:22He just had to.

11:24He stepped out of the cabin

11:26into the freezing night air

11:27and walked across the rickety bridge.

11:29He looked out at the expanse of it,

11:31each rope bridge

11:32seeming like a singular thread

11:33in some gigantic spider web

11:35woven across the skies.

11:37And then he realized

11:39he wasn't alone.

11:41There was a man

11:42on one of the other bridges,

11:43just standing there,

11:45staring off in the other direction.

11:47Jack screamed out to him,

11:48trying to get his attention,

11:50but he didn't move.

11:51Jack had to get closer.

11:53Maybe this stranger

11:54had some answers,

11:54something that could add

11:55to the story somehow,

11:56make it even deeper, richer.

11:59He crossed two different bridges,

12:01passing through

12:01two different cabins

12:02in the process

12:03until he was finally able

12:04to approach the figure

12:05on the bridge.

12:06Details came into sharper relief.

12:09The man's large frame,

12:10his plaid shirt,

12:11the edges of a bushy beard.

12:13Like Paul Bunyan,

12:14Jack thought to himself

12:15and came to a halt.

12:17There was silence.

12:19Neither of them moved.

12:21Uh, Derek?

12:22Jack said.

12:24Slowly, the figure,

12:25Derek presumably,

12:27turned around.

12:28Jack gasped.

12:29The skin on his face

12:31was all wrong.

12:32Like ill-fitting clothes,

12:33it was stretched across a skull

12:35that it was never meant to cover.

12:36With these wild,

12:37staring eyes

12:38and a mouth full

12:39of vicious fangs,

12:40it gave as much of a smile

12:42as it could

12:43with such little control

12:44over its face

12:45and began striding

12:46towards Jack.

12:47He thought about

12:48begging for Derek to stop,

12:50but on some level,

12:51Jack knew that his words

12:52would mean nothing

12:53to this thing.

12:54Instead,

12:54he reflexively grabbed

12:55for the hammer

12:56and pulled it out

12:57of his belt loop,

12:58lunging for Derek

12:58and swinging the hammer

12:59down towards his head

13:00with tremendous force.

13:02It just embedded

13:03into the skin

13:03of his forehead.

13:04Derek didn't even stumble.

13:06His wrong smile

13:07broadened

13:08and he kept

13:09walking forward.

13:10Jack did barely

13:11even scream

13:12when the hands

13:12closed around him.

13:15In a distant office,

13:16Tabby sat next to a radio,

13:18listening to music

13:19to pass the time.

13:20When the speakers

13:21crackled into life,

13:22it was the familiar voice

13:23of Jack,

13:24sounding a little frazzled,

13:25raw around the edges,

13:26but it was still him.

13:28Tabby?

13:29Tabby, are you there?

13:30The voice said.

13:31Tabby picked up

13:32the receiver.

13:33Yeah, Jack, I'm here.

13:34Everything okay?

13:35The ragged voice said,

13:37Oh, Tabby,

13:38more than okay.

13:39Things are wonderful.

13:42You wouldn't believe

13:43the things

13:44I've seen tonight.

13:47Weird, Tabby thought.

13:48He sounds spaced.

13:50Is he on something?

13:52But, Tabby,

13:52I'm a little worried,

13:53the voice said.

13:55I think I saw smoke

13:56from the trees.

13:58I need you

13:59to come check it out.

14:00That lit

14:00the proverbial fire

14:01under her.

14:02Tabby grabbed

14:03her forest ranger hat.

14:04I'm on my way,

14:05she said.

14:06Please hurry,

14:07the voice said back.

14:09Tabby didn't realize,

14:10but the voice

14:11was practically shaking

14:12with an unrecognizable

14:14kind of desire.

14:16The thing wearing Jack

14:18put down his receiver

14:19and smiled in the dark

14:21of the cab,

14:22reaching up

14:22and readjusting

14:23the skin of his face,

14:24making sure that its eyes

14:26could get a good view

14:27through the eye holes.

14:28When it grinned,

14:29it grinned with long,

14:31pointed teeth

14:31that it licked clean

14:32of blood

14:33with a writhing tongue.

14:35It sat on Jack's bed

14:36and looked at the hatch

14:38on the ground.

14:39Just needed to be patient.

14:41Tabby would be here soon.

14:42And good thing, too,

14:44it was already

14:45feeling hungry again.

14:47Perhaps Tabby's skin

14:48would be an even better

14:49fit than Jack's.

14:52What Jack and many others

14:54fell victim to there

14:55was an anomaly

14:56known to the SCP Foundation

14:57as SCP-3333,

15:00codenamed The Tower.

15:01It's not unusual

15:02for something contained

15:03by the SCP Foundation

15:04to have a body count,

15:05but SCP-3333

15:07is a rare example

15:09of an anomaly

15:09that has a high body count

15:10among civilians

15:11and Foundation personnel.

15:13All because,

15:14as Jack found out

15:15the hard way,

15:16appearances can be deceiving.

15:18It's an anomaly

15:19with two main components,

15:20spatial and biological.

15:22Spatial accounts

15:23for the location,

15:24a fire lookout tower

15:25with a cabin that extends

15:26into seemingly infinite

15:28other cabins.

15:28The biological element

15:30accounts for the creatures

15:31that call that

15:32infinite series of cabins

15:33their home

15:34and who gleefully prey

15:35on anyone unlucky enough

15:36to find themselves

15:37exploring them.

15:38When news of the disappearances

15:39and reports of impossible spaces

15:41reached the Foundation,

15:42they sent a mobile task force

15:43to investigate.

15:44The task force traversed

15:46hundreds of floors

15:46worth of cabins

15:47until they briefly

15:48dropped contact

15:49and then began

15:50behaving strangely.

15:51This was assumed

15:52to be the true anomalous power

15:54of SCP-3333,

15:56disorienting people,

15:57altering their behavior

15:58until subsequent investigators

16:00discovered piles of organs

16:01and bones in the dark.

16:02It was only then,

16:04too late to prevent

16:05many deaths

16:06and an inexcusable level

16:07of Foundation security compromise

16:08that the Foundation

16:09truly realized

16:10what was going on.

16:11The entities

16:12inside the spatial anomaly,

16:14dubbed SCP-3333-1,

16:17were emptying out

16:17their victims

16:18and wearing their skin,

16:19transforming into

16:20a workable facsimile

16:22and using it

16:22to seek out

16:23and do the same

16:24to others.

16:25And when you consider

16:26the number

16:27of experienced

16:28Foundation personnel

16:28that have died

16:29in the cold,

16:30dark world

16:30of SCP-3333,

16:32you begin to realize

16:33that people like

16:34Jack and Tabby

16:35never really stood

16:36any kind of chance.

16:38So if ever you find yourself

16:39in a certain

16:40Washington National Park

16:41and you see

16:42the alluring silhouette

16:43of a fire lookout tower

16:44on the horizon,

16:45my best advice

16:46is to walk

16:47in the other direction

16:47as fast

16:48as you possibly can.

16:52Want more

16:53nightmarish anomalies

16:54that'll really get

16:54under your skin?

16:55Pun absolutely intended.

16:57I recommend you

16:58check out my file.

16:59You won't realize

16:59this parasite

17:00has stolen your body.

17:02SCP-150

17:02is zero.

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